The Sonic Game We Never Got

[Music] hey guys and welcome back to another video right here on tetravid gaming so it seems my channel has been nothing but mario the past couple of weeks here so i thought i'd shake things up and give team blue some of the spotlight as well sonic fans have been debating on whether the 2d or 3d games are better for decades now and in some extreme cases some fans even say the 3d games are what ruined the series on that note let's talk about the first fully 3d sonic game the one that was never released coming off the heels of a well-received sonic and knuckles in 1994 sega was rightfully looking for the next major sonic installment now at the time sonic team had their hands tied up developing knights and two dreams for the sega saturn so sega technical institute or sti was once again up to that for the next installment now sti had worked on several sonic games before including sonic 2 and sonic 3. so what could go wrong right enter sonic xtreme a game that was initially pitched as another side-scrolling sonic game for the sega genesis to be the successor to sonic and knuckles during the development of sonic 3 and sonic and knuckles the developers had tried to implement new 3d graphics but were unable to due to the hardware limitations of the genesis so this time with some technical advances the developers wanted to aim higher they wanted to find a new sonic experience to bring to the table at first with new 32-bit games coming out at the time the project was changed to developing the game for the sega 32x and the game got the working title of sonic mars named after the sega 32x codename project mars the title was then eventually changed to just sonic 32x to match the sega 32x name also around this time the vision for the game changed from a typical 2d side scroller to what was supposed to be a more impressive isometric view though the side-scrolling mechanic remained so basically a 2.5 d side scroller of sorts but this was the mid-90s with the sony playstation and eventually nintendo 64 on the horizon much like every other gaming company sega 2 wanted to usher in their poster boy in this new 3d era as such the idea for sonic 32x was to develop the game in a 3d view on a floating plane this seemed pretty ambitious even for the 32x on top of that the development studio produced design documents for the 32x version of the game before they were even aware of its hardware specs and limitations and when sonic's co-creator yuji naka came back to the united states from japan to observe sega technical institute's development the studio he had once developed prior sonic games with one look at their aspirations with this idea and all he said was good luck as you can probably tell by now development of this game was all over the place and no it doesn't stop here not even close at this point sega decided to move the project past the genesis even past the sega saturn and right to being a launch title for a future console they were planning which would utilize 3d nvidia-based hardware although nvidia was dropped the hope was eventually for its come out on the dreamcast but this decision was quickly changed around this time in 1995 the sega 32x was uh not doing so hot and the sega saturn wasn't doing all much better so sega thought it would be a wiser decision to bring in the big guns and use the blue blur to help promote the saturn and foster more sails so sonic xtreme was back to being a saturn game under the code name sonic ring worlds and this is where it would remain and while this all looks pretty chaotic from an outside perspective internally things weren't much better with the sti development team around this same time michael kosaka who was the executive producer and team lead of the project had resigned amidst growing tension in the studio particularly with one dean lester later that same year lester also quit and the lead programmer don goddard was let go as much of the development team found him difficult to work with simply put to call the development of this game hell at this point would be an understatement now with some new faces on the team and roles shuffled around the studio now had a holiday 1996 deadline they needed to make the heat was on it was also around this time that the news of a new 3d sonic game had finally made it to the public development of sonic xtreme was now split between two teams with team one developing the main levels for the game and team two taking care of the boss fights interestingly both teams were developing the game using different game engines and tools the boss stages were being developed on the saturn while development of the main stages was focused on the pc with the plan to eventually port the game to the saturn some members of the team felt that this division of work would ensure that things would go smoother with better results while understandably others expressed frustration either way development continued and the game began to take shape once again as the boss stages were developed to be massive open areas with huge 3d enemies that the player could take on while the main stages were developed with a cool concept of being able to rotate the entire game's perspective and i guess gravitational pull on sonic so you could tackle a stage in a seeming variety of different angles then in the earlier half of 1996 sega of japan sent some representatives over to sti to evaluate how development was going they were shown the progress of the main levels which again were developed on pc and then ported to the saturn they were unimpressed with the performance that was shown to them the developers apparently wanted to show them a newer build that was more stable and ran better but the representatives left before they had a chance to the rep was however impressed with the boss engine and had requested that all development be switched to this method and that the now small development team work harder than ever to meet the december deadline you think game dev crunch is bad nowadays apparently the team was working between 16 to 20 hours a day and some of the team had essentially moved into the office so they could work day and night now that is dedication then despite all this time and steps taken towards a finished product after seeing an early build of nights into dreams that sonic team had been developing some sonic xtreme developers felt that the tech used for knights was something they needed for sonic xtreme so they requested that sega of america provide them with the code and development tools that sonic team had been using in time the sonic xtreme team got what they wanted and production was again moved to use these new tools well this was until sonic co-creator and sonic team lead yuji naka found out that the tools and code he and his team had worked on was being lent to sti over in america he wasn't very happy to hear this so unhappy in fact that he threatened to resign from sega if they didn't stop the other studio from using his work this was yet another setback for extreme development and because of this whole fiasco about two weeks worth of work was essentially wasted and extra time is certainly something the development team didn't have at this point then to show the world that development was totally not a disaster sega showcased a demo of sonic xtreme at e3 of 1996. this demo build was apparently of the boss fight engine that one of the teams had been working on but of course things weren't actually that dandy behind the scenes quite the opposite team morale was running on fumes more team members were getting fired and others were getting so physically ill that one member chris sen was told he only had six months to live thankfully he survived it was at this point that the now two month away deadline to have the game in customers homes was deemed impossible so i'm sure with a heavy heart the game's producer mike wallace made the call to cancel the game sonic xtreme was officially dead some members of the dev team felt that the game could have been completed with another 6 to 12 months but this never came to be and in fact sega of america disbanded the sti division later that same year now at this time sega only announced that the game was going to be delayed and although there was never an official announcement that the game was cancelled after a while sonic fans were just able to put two and two together and see that sonic xtreme was no more instead fans were now playing sonic 3d blast which although not a true fully 3d game i guess it served to scratch that itch that sonic fans had for a 3d game also unsurprisingly a planned movie tie-in for sonic xtreme in which sonic and dr robotnik would escape from the game into the real world was also scrapped though i do believe this happened before the game was cancelled and the rest of sonic's 3d ambitions is history with many ups and downs in 2013 many had noted that sonic lost world uses many similar aspects of sonic xtreme though this has been ruled a coincidence by sonic team from beginning to end sonic xtreme's development was just a mess due to many factors ego bad timing poor business decisions you name it i guess this goes to show that although some companies were able to figure it out it was really tough for other companies to figure out how to transition to the 3d side of game development unfortunately for sega the failure of this game is often blamed for the failure of the saturn as a whole as this was basically the turning point which would lead to the demise of sega on the hardware front overall personally i think based on what i've seen and played in some league's prototypes the game looks like it had some serious potential now although sonic xtreme was cancelled thankfully not all was lost for starters like i said as you've been seeing me play throughout this video some prototypes of the game have surfaced on the internet over the years if you're interested let me know and maybe i'll make a video talking a bit more about these leaked prototypes and some cut content in the future also in an effort to make development not a complete waste of time chris sen you know the guy that almost died making this game well about a decade ago he started revealing much of sonic xtreme's development history and at one point even tried to rebuild the game and finish it under the title project s unfortunately though after a few years that project also was scrapped so i guess that means sonic xtreme has been scrapped twice now he also created the sonic xtreme compendium a website dedicated to the game which hosted several of the materials he had made for it this includes characters like tiara bubowski textures videos an faq section answering many good questions music as well as a forum for a discussion although he maintained the site for a while it did unfortunately die off thankfully some fans have archived the site and although some things are still working much of the site no longer does work which is kind of unfortunate if you're interested at all i highly recommend you check it out i'll have it linked down in the description with my other sources sonic xtreme a game plagued with many developmental problems that got tossed around so much that it seems even sonic speed couldn't keep up anyways i hope you enjoyed this video if you're itching for more sonic content like this check out my video where i cover an unreleased sonic level by clicking or tapping on the card right here but as always thank you all so much for watching today and i will see you in a bit [Music] you

Channel: TetraBitGaming

Views: 285,166

Keywords: Sonic, sonic x-treme, sonic the hedgehog, Sonic Xtreme, sonic and tails, Sonic 32X, Sonic Boom, Sega, Sega Genesis, Unreleased Sonic Games, Sonic Lost Bits, TetraBitGaming, TetraBit, TBG Common, TetraBit Sonic, TetraBitGaming Sonic, Sonic Cut Content, Sonic Beta, Sonic Xtreme gameplay, gameplay, video games, gaming, sega saturn, sega genesis, sega mega drive, sega dreamcast, 3D Sonic, Sonic 3D blast, retro gaming, Console Wars, Nintendo, Mario, Lost Bits, Sonic History

Id: fXjuQmeJwb0

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 28 2020